![]() ![]() There is speech in which the Other as subject – Yusuke’s subjectivity as well as the subjectivity of Fukaku – is missed or avoided. Their conversations, as soon becomes apparent, have different interrelated sides. To discern these thematical dynamics, the spectator is tasked to read between the lines of the many conversations, most importantly the conversations between Yusuke and Fukaku. Hamaguchi masterly develops these thematical elements via his exquisitely composed conversations. Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a narrative that explores the elusive nature of female desire, the ease by which a subject flees into his ego to avoid dealing with his own subject and the other as subject, and the need to address one’s speech to the Other to escape one’s subjective deadlock. Luckily, the test drive with Misaki Watari (Toko Miura) goes well. Yet, the news that he will be driven around by personal driver slightly upsets him. Per his request, his residence is one hour away from the theater, on an island along the Shimanami bridge. Two years later, Yusuke has accepted to direct Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya for a festival at the Hiroshima Arts and Culture Theater. Not that much later, he finds his wife dead in their apartment. Yet, before being noticed, he slips out and drives back to Narita to stay at a hotel. Returning home, he discovers his wife making love on the couch with Koshi Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), one the actors of her upcoming drama. One morning, upon arriving at Narita airport to take a plane to Vladivostok, Yusuke learns that his flight has been postponed to the next day. His wife Fukaku Oto (Reika Kirishima), with whom he is seemingly happily married, is on the other hand working on an erotically charged drama for Japanese television. Stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is currently performing a multi-lingual version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting on Godot. This year, Hamaguchi did not only deliver, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021), an anthology on love and desire, but also an adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story ‘ Drive My Car’ which was included in his Men Without Women (2017). Many would agree that Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the new poster-boy of Japanese cinema, a director that happily disturbed the somewhat stale international hegemony of Kore-eda and Kawase.
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